An extremely well drawn picture of my all time favorite historical tank, the Pz. Kpfw. VIII Maus! This 188 ton monster never got beyond the prototype stage, only two of them were built. Fortunately (for the results of the war), and unfortunately (for historical reasons), this monster was never fully brought into production, as it was difficult to not only think up ways to get it to the battle field, but to work on an engine that would be able to manuver it. The two prototypes were said to be destroyed before Russia invaded Berlin, but I disagree, considering there are pics on the net from Russian museums with a Maus tank in them...

Well, comparing this beast to modern armor, the heaviest known tank today, would be the American M2 Abrams, weighing in at 86 tons (with a special attachment for removing land mines), so yeah, 188 tons would be remarkable would it not? Yikes, I would love to have a modernized version of one of these... XD

>>>The two prototypes were said to be destroyed before Russia invaded Berlin, but I disagree, considering there are pics on the net from Russian museums with a Maus tank in them...

They took part in battle for Kummersdorf and were self-destructed. Maus in Kubinka is ONE Maus in the whole world, reconstructed by Russians from what remained of those two. It even was tested in USSR, but when it was put to the museum, all its inner parts were dismounted and given to scientific labs. So you have seen a hollow shell of this tank.(If you'll visit Moscow, you can even get into tanks and see I'm true).

Yes, there is indeed a lot of theories and neat information about them out there. I remember reading something about one that was almost complete, but not complete, actually taking part in defending the facility where it was built. Probably not true but who knows.

TWO of them - one complete and one not. They tried to defend not their facility, but KUMMERSDORF TESTING RANGE. BTW in "Fall of Berlin" movie (1949) you can see a prototype Daimler-Benz's Panther that were captured right there.

Last month I've bought a couple of old military booklets from communism period. One of them claimed that there were three Mauses actually built, of which one was captured at Kummersdorf proving ground and two were protecting important objects in Berlin. Your picture reminded me this book.

Note however that those booklets (known as "Seria Zółty Tygrys" - "Yellow Tiger Series") are filled with propaganda informations that are not neccessarly true or even totaly absurd compared to what we know now.

That is very interesting. Based on the information in a realistic/accurate game I play about tanks, only one of them was actually fitted with armaments, but from what I gathered it was never really deployed in battle, but who knows?

Nice pic. I read one of the problems with it was that it kept having stuff added to it, because Hitler himself took personal interest in it, and sometimes insisted on design changes...like going through a phase when he wanted a flame thrower...and it needed to have a large fuel tank for extended use. Once the final tank began production, it had problems. One of the "Mice" would damage the foundations of all buildings it passed on the road, and when it went off-road, it sank into the ground. This limited it. And its lack of speed meant it was a sitting duck for air strikes. One of them ended up being used as a stationary turret for defence. I read somewhere the tank also had a snorkel, so that it could cross rivers without the need of a bridge or ford...but that "sinking into the ground" problem would be a problem there.

There was an even larger tank that was being designed, "The Ratte", but the war ended before one could be built. It was supposed to be something like a ground battleship, or sort of like a Technodrome (forgive my weird references). Given the difficulties of the Maus, this would have been even more difficult.

I just found out that there was an even MORE extreme tank on the drawing board for the Germans... [link] the "Monster." 1,500 metric tons, and a crew of 100. With the Maus problems apparent, the Monster was canceled at the same time as the Ratte.

And it's interesting that the guy placed in charge of the Maus project, a Volkswagen engineer named Otto Porsche...would later become associated with luxury cars.

It's not just tanks that are extreme for the Nazis...there was also a planned project for 3-metre gauge railway, to allow for wider trains. Getting a new railway gauge, and new locomotives and railcars for this, would have been impractical, especially during a war (it takes just one piece of rail missing, or one damaged joint, and you get a derailment)

Actually, the V1 prototype (No armament with dummy turret) survived, but the V2 prototype (with armament) was blown up by the Soviets in Kummersdorf, and the tank in Kubinka is the result of the Russians merging the V1 Chassis with the V2 turret.

a massive tank that shattered windows when it moved, it's 155MM gun could put in a hole even in some modern armor units, the MAUS is the single largest tank ever created, but it's greatest weakness is it was overengineered, and under powered, it was far too slow to operate effectively on the battlefield, and too heavy and large to fight in any but the most ideal conditions. The MAUS' greatest strength if produced however, wouldn't be it's fighting capability, but the fact it existed. Both Panzertiger tanks were also underpowered for weapons of their caliber, but they gained their effectiveness by their mere presence. regardless of how well they truly operated, they scared the ** outta enemy soldiers, which was just as effective as a tank that actually compared to how they should have operated. The Tigers did that pretty effective, but the MAUS would take it to a new level.

There never were Russian tanks based on Maus. Some Porsche's ideas were in various IS prototypes, but at last they were assumed to be non-effective for their price so no serial IS had Porsche's projects used in it.

Exactly, I know one was destroyed by the Russians but the rest, who knows. Same thing with the two underwater aircraft carriers Japan had. One the US captured and when Russia demanded access to it it "sank" mysteriously. The other, I have no idea.

Actually, the Maus really wasn't a tactically efficient weapon (I guess if it had thicker armor and could actually move it would have been), but even so, the two main reasons for Germany's defeat (in my opinion) was Hitler's invasion of Russia and his failure to listen to his generals about the D-day defense.

But yeah, even so, a huge fleet out Maus tanks would be insane just for the scare tactics alone xD

Both prototypes where sent from their testing facility in Kummelsdorf to meet the soviets whom where getting closer. One of the tank's engines broke down shortly after leaving the facility, so the crew blew it up to deny it to the soviets. The second tank kept moving, and was later damaged in the turret. It is still uncertain if the damage was caused by actual combat versus the soviets, or if the engine broke down and the crew attempted to destroy this one as well.

The example that resides in the armor museum in Kubinka (Russia) is a hybrid between the two prototypes, combining the (relatively) undamaged turret from the first tank with the hull of the second one.

188 tons is ALOT, considering a blue whale weights 130 tons...

That artwork is the boxart from the 1/72 scale Maus tank model by Pegasus models. It's a very nice kit, I have it, but haven't built it yet.

Any modern tank will easily get rid of this monster. It's era is over, time can't be stopped.Theoretically nazis can mask it and use as an SPG, this gives some chances against ONE or TWO (maximum) tanks. Then it will be destroyed anyway.